Are tomatoes even conceivable in this weather? I don’t know about you, but this is the longest, darkest, coldest Colorado winter I remember. This is Iowa winter, Minnesota winter. I know we shouldn’t complain; friends of mine are in Philly for a jewelry trade show, and I shudder to think of what they’re slogging through, stuck in City Center, and I just hope their hotel is stocked up with food and has a big lounge somewhere with a fireplace and that the path to the nearest friendly bar is shoveled and not very far.

So: We’re not socked in with two or three or four feet of snow, and that’s good, a blessing to not forget. And the sun is coming back. And we have tomato dreams. AND a tomato-book winner:

Cindy Peterson's tomato patch

Cindy Peterson gardens in Golden. These are a mere twenty of her tomato plants from last year. They got hit by the July 20 hailstorm and are shown recovering in August. The varieties: Golden Jubilee, Cherokee Purple, Early Girl, Mortgage Lifter, 1st Lady, Sweet 100 Cherry, Russian Rose, Manalucie, Dolly Parton, Mr. Stripey and Kosovo and Cambell’s Soup. And I thought I had no resistance to a tomato description. (She doesn’t mention my own tomato weakness, a Russian-style tomato called Black Pear, which is not like the Yellow Pear cherry tomato at all; it’s medium-sized, ripens to a chocolate color, keeps bearing right into frost and holds well on the kitchen table while you’re trying to get time to can/freeze/grill it). Cindy wins “The Too Many Tomatoes Cookbook.”

Susan Clotfelter has always played in the dirt, but got dragged into gardening as an obsession when she reclaimed her hell corner: a weed-infested patch of clay inhabited by one tough, lonely lilac and a thicket of weeds. Along with training as a Colorado State University Extension Master Gardener volunteer, she dug deeper with beds of herbs and lettuce at her home and rows of vegetables wherever she could borrow land. She writes for The Denver Post and other publications and appears on community radio.

Julie's passion for gardening began in spring of 2000 when she bought a fixer-upper in Denver's Park Hill neighborhood, and realized that the landsape was in desperate need of some TLC. During the drought of 2003, she decided to give up on bluegrass and xeriscape her front yard. She wrote about the journey in the Rocky Mountain News, in a series called Mud, Sweat & Tears: A Xeriscape story. Julie is an avid veggie gardener as well as a seasoned water gardener.